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vsskanth

3,103 karma · joined April 16, 2019

Motorsports Simulation Manager

www.linkedin.com/in/vsskanth

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vsskanth··on Show HN: Copy-and-patch compiler for hard real-time Python
How is this different to casadi ?
vsskanth··on New US curb on high-skill immigrant workers ignores evidence of its likely harms
Citizens are always favored. It costs way more money, lawyers, time and paperwork to hire someone on a visa. HR hates it.
vsskanth··on New H-1B visa fee will not apply to existing holders, official says
Still doesn't clarify what happens to people adjusting their status from F1 to H1B inside the US. Is that a new visa ?
vsskanth··on NASA loses another senior official as tension about the agency's future grows
What is the actual intent behind decimating NASA ? It's tiny compared to the defense budget and fairly high ROI in terms of maintaining US scientific leadership.
vsskanth··on I'm Wirecutter's water-quality expert. I don't filter my water
It's mostly for taste at this point, rather than safety. For a long time I used to drink right from the tap, now use a filter pitcher simply because it tastes better.
vsskanth··on A 'Trump Card Visa' Is Already Showing Up in Immigration Forms
No law required ? Is Executive order sufficient to create new visa categories ?
vsskanth··on "I need to rethink my future": Tech workers on coping with shifting immigration
Not disputing long term damage to the talent pool in the US, just making an observation that it won't be solved until the issue affects certain groups.
vsskanth··on "I need to rethink my future": Tech workers on coping with shifting immigration
Issues with immigration will be fixed once Europeans start reporting difficulties obtaining visas and green cards. Until then it's business as usual.
vsskanth··on Nearly half Dell's US workforce has rejected RTO. Rather WFH than get promoted (2024)
Smart move. One typically needs to move jobs to get promoted anyways.
vsskanth··on Updates to H-1B
Spouses on H4 cannot work unless the primary H1B has an approved I-140 immigrant petition. It's not automatic.
vsskanth··on Updates to H-1B
they mean "bonafide job offer". What is happening right now is staffing agencies (mainly in India) mass file H1B applications for all their staff, and then once they get picked in the lottery, they find assignments in the US and file the entire petition after. This heavily disadvantages non-staffing companies who file H1Bs for their staff outside the country or those in the US on F1 visas for actual jobs.

This change is meant to close that loophole. This used to not be a problem, because you had to file the entire petition BEFORE you enter the lottery, but now you just pay some nominal fee and get your name in, leading to a highly profitable situation for staffing companies.

vsskanth··on Modelica
This is a pretty niche acausal language, and is used extensively in Motorsports (F1, NASCAR) for real-time simulation on the driver simulator.

The language spec is open source but there many commercial compilers, Dymola is the most popular.

I code in this language extensively and its acausal nature is extremely powerful. It makes your models highly composable, you can basically assemble a mechanical system like a bunch of lego blocks and the equations fall out automatically. You can also easily invert your models.

The closest analogy in the programming world is Haskell.

vsskanth··on Demystifying Git Submodules
speaking of submodules, anyone here have experience with git subrepo ?
vsskanth··on An unusual Google Keyboard bug
Not surprised. For an AI first company, Google keyboard swipe behavior is atrociously bad.
vsskanth··on Kernel optimization with BOLT (binary optimization and layout tool)
Anyone know of a windows equivalent to BOLT ?
vsskanth··on The American Dream Without a House? Believe It
Seems light on data, mostly anecdotes
vsskanth··on Wush: Simplest and fastest way to transfer files between computers via WireGuard
Is there a P2P file transfer program that doesn't require any Internet connection, even for establishing the handshake ?
vsskanth··on Atlas: A Windows modification to optimize performance, privacy and usability
One would think this is the entire point of Windows Pro and Enterprise, but apparently not.
vsskanth··on How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program
The executive branch cannot make laws. The H1B program and green card numerical limits came to be from Congress passing laws and can only be changed by them passing new laws.
vsskanth··on Why It Takes Forever to Get a Doctor's Appointment (2023)
The number of residency slots (a legal requirement to be a doctor) is limited because it's funded by Medicare and only Congress can increase it. AMA (American Medical Association) has lobbied to keep it that way.
vsskanth··on How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program
This requires Congress to pass legislation, so cannot be done tomorrow. Legal immigration isn't a high priority in general and Congress hasn't moved on immigration in decades.
vsskanth··on How middlemen are gaming the H-1B program
Staffing companies are extremely profitable and mostly operate on the edge of the law, exploiting visa workers for maximum profit. Any attempt by USCIS to regulate staffing agencies use of H1B has been fought tooth and nail by armies of lawyers.

With the fall of Chevron, I don't think there is a way out of this without legislative changes.

The other side of the coin is the extremely arbitrary and capricious nature of the US employment based visa and immigration system. This naturally leads to middlemen who can navigate the system exploit it.

vsskanth··on Chip-scale titanium-sapphire laser puts powerful technology in reach
What are the potential applications here
vsskanth··on London Underground hosts tests for 'quantum compass' that could replace GPS
Highly accurate dead reckoning basically. I wonder how it compares to the other method of mapping subterranean patterns and matching to them.
vsskanth··on NLRB judge declares non-compete clause is an unfair labor practice
Labor is human capital, and in a free market, people should be free to deploy their human capital wherever they want to get maximum ROI.
vsskanth··on AI in software engineering at Google: Progress and the path ahead
I wonder if AI code completion reduces the value of abstractions if boilerplate code is easy to generate. Will this lead to highly repetitive code ?
vsskanth··on 4K 1000Hz Monitor Exhibited
I see lots of progress and resources put towards monitor refresh rates but very little progress on making 5K displays cheaper. Any reason why ? Is this due to gaming ?
vsskanth··on A Joint Statement from UniSuper and Google Cloud CEO, Thomas Kurian
> inadvertent misconfiguration during provisioning of UniSuper’s Private Cloud services ultimately resulted in the deletion of UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription

The real question here is who pushed the misconfiguration that led to account deletion ? If was Google, it looks really, really bad on them especially considering they also seemed to have deleted their backups.

vsskanth··on Tesla's wafer-sized Dojo processor is in production – 25 chips combined into one
So is this used exclusively for training FSD ?
vsskanth··on Cheap Mortgages Deter Workers from Relocating for $250k Jobs
Nobody wants to 2x their monthly mortgage, raise would have to be much higher to make it worth it.
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